


The Best Part

by atamascolily



Series: Popular Media in a Galaxy Far, Far Away [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Irony, Meta, Tumblr Prompt, popular media in a galaxy far far away, references to Shadows of Mindor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Mara Jade hates all the holothrillers featuring Luke Skywalker, but there's a particular scene in a certain one that she can't help watching over and over again.





	The Best Part

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from A03 users Frangipani: _“In a Phorliss cantina one Mara Jade unequivocally loathes all of the Luke Skywalker holothrillers. All of them. Except one.” (You dear writer choose which and why)._
> 
> Set post-Endor and pre-Thrawn trilogy, when Mara is working for Karrde.

It was a grubby bar on a third-rate planet, with tepid caf that tasted like vornskr piss, and the holo display was on the fritz, but even if the place had been jam-packed and featured live entertainment, Mara Jade would have still watched the holo display over the counter with a ferocious intensity otherwise reserved for justifiable assassinations and high-stakes negotiations. The sound on the holo was broken, of course, and the colors were warped and faded from their original brilliance, but there was no mistaking the sandy-haired young man with a lightsaber who pranced about despite the shockingly impractical cape and ballooning trousers that looked like they were about to fall off at any moment. 

It was a fictional version of her most hated enemy, sworn target, and greatest failure, all wrapped up in one frighfully saccharine package: Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, war hero, and champion of the fledgling New Republic. 

Like most holothrillers, this one was complete crap, of course. Quantity always outsold quality, and there was no shortage of increasingly lurid titles for a spectacle-happy public to gorge themselves on now that Imperial censorship laws were officially lifted. Given its ridiculously low budget and poor writing, there was no way in hell that _Luke Skywalker and the Emperor's Hand_ was ever going to be good. The bad acting and outrageous costumes certainly didn't improve matters as far as Mara was concerned. 

In most of the stories featuring Skywalker, he was depicted as an overpowered goody-two-shoes, all sweetness and light even as he slaughtered stormtroopers with abandon, or massacred a Hutt crime cartel. Those, at least, were at least loosely based on historical fact; there were even more outrageous onces - like the one where Skywalker was the Emperor's secret heir or forced to battle a fire-breathing Tatooine krayt dragon single-handedly - that didn't even _pretend_ to be remotely biographical. This one was no different from the rest in that regard. 

What captured Mara's attention in this one was his opponent. 

Skywalker's image faded from the display as a tall, lovely human woman in a skintight black catsuit stepped into view, her red lightsaber ignited and held in a stance that would have gotten her killed in a _real_ fight, but certainly looked dramatic enough. She and Skywalker battled each other for nearly five minutes before her lightsaber was at Skywalker's exposed throat. Her face was flush with triumph as she barked a rough order, forcing Skywalker to drop his lightsaber and stare up at her with a worshipful look on his face, where fear warred with awe. 

It was exactly the expression Mara wanted more than anything else to see on the face of the _real_ Skywalker - right before she killed him. 

Mara wasn't entirely sure if the writers knew that there had indeed been a young woman known as the Emperor's Hand, who moved silently through formal balls and back allies with ease as she fulfilled her master's orders. Certainly, they'd gotten a number of key points in - including the red hair and the lightsaber - but that could be due to luck and chance rather than any real information about her past. They'd certainly been mistaken about her relationship with the Emperor. She wasn't a victim and Palpatine had never mistreated her. He had supported her with genuine affection, despite her many failures. She had always done her best to serve him out of love, not fear. 

The truth was that the novelty of "Master Jedi Luke Skywalker" facing down a young, attractive opponent with a tortured past who could best him in a lightsaber duel was a gambit designed to increase this particular holo's appeal, at least with a humanoid audience. Sex always sold, and the truth was always secondary to the spectacle with these things. 

It was true that the Emperor had ordered her to kill Luke Skywalker. But in real life, she hadn't even gotten close enough to carry out her task. She'd remained in the shadows, nursing her pride and biding her time, reminded of her failure by the countless Skywalker holos to be found on practically every channel of every ship, station and world in the civilized galaxy (and more than a few of the uncivilized portions, too). She wasn't ready to make her move yet, but when the time was right, she would strike. One day, she would fulfil her master's last command. 

Of course, in the black-and-white world of the holos, evil could never triumph for long. It was a good thing the sound was turned off, because Mara didn't want to hear what sickening arguments the fictional Skywalker used to persuade the fictional Emperor's Hand to join his cause. Whatever it was worked better than expected, because not only did the fictional Hand extinguish her lightsaber to allow Skywalker rise to his feat, but she let him reach his hands out to her, and draw her close enough to let the hero wrap her in a cloaked embrace, bending his head for a passionate kiss. 

Mara ground her teeth, and reached out with the Force, just enough of a nudge to make the holo display short-circuit. The image of the lovers froze and dissolved in a burst of static, and then suddenly the battle scene was re-playing again, ending abruptly with the victory of the Emperor's Hand and looping back to the start of the battle once the clip had finished. 

There. Much better. 

She watched the display more times through before her comlink beeped and whistled, signifying it was time to go back to the ship. "I'm on my way," she growled into the microphone, before returning it to its usual place on her belt, right next to her blaster. Karrde had thought he was being kind to give her shore leave here on Phorliss following a successful negotiation, but she couldn't wait to get back to the _Wild Karrde_ and back to business. He didn't seem to understand that she craved the distractions from her own thoughts. 

Still, as she watched the fictional battle between Luke Skywalker and the Emperor's Hand play out again in front of her, she couldn't help but feel a sense of deep satisfaction. Despite everything the writers had gotten wrong, this was how she imagined it in her head - sweet, sweet victory, followed by a quick, clean death for Skywalker. No pardons, no mercy, no groveling on his part. (Okay, well, maybe a little. She was only human after all.) No romance. No redemption. 

She didn't _need_ redemption - especially not from _him_. 

The writers of _Luke Skywalker and the Emperor's Hand_ were a sappy, maudlin bunch for whom love conquered all - or at least cynical enough to give their target audience exactly what they wanted. But the _real_ Emperor's Hand wouldn't fall for that kind of crap. Maybe the galaxy would know the truth behind Skywalker's death and maybe they wouldn't. 

Mara thought it would be better if it remained a mystery. Let the holo writers come up with an explanation. They'd done such an excellent job with this one, after all. 

When the Emperor's Hand met Luke Skywalker for real, things would never go like _that_.


End file.
